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Remember letters? Some aren’t getting through

Canada Post is transforming the way it delivers mail, and letter carriers say the changes aren’t good for Londoners.

Though the so-called postal transformation has been slowly rolling out across the country for nearly two years, several routes were restructured in London last month.

The local president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers said the changes mean some Londoners aren’t getting mail, even though they have it.

“Customer service is taking a big hit,” Local 566 president Tony Hubley said.

In a bid to change the way it delivers mail at a time when the amount of mail being delivered is down, the Crown corporation has restructured some routes as part of a $2-billion, cross-Canada plan.

The postal codes beginning with N5V, X, W, Y and Z — mostly in the Highbury Ave. and Hamilton Rd. area — were once served by 91 routes, Hubley said.

Now there are 78.

Workers who used to deliver to between 400 and 600 addresses now deliver to between 800 and 1,000 addresses, and carriers are working later into the night as a result, Hubley said.

There haven’t been any actual layoffs, but carriers who have retired haven’t been replaced.

Though carriers now deliver to more addresses, not everyone will get mail daily, said Jon Hamilton, spokesperson for Canada Post. The corporation has a formula that looks at how much mail and how many parcels are delivered and plans a route according to that data, he said.

“Often what that means is the number of points of call, or addresses, increases but it’s still built down to the minute precision of it being an eight-hour day,” he said.

Instead of sorting their own mail and walking their route, a machine now sorts it for the carriers. In theory, workers are supposed to spend less time at the depot, only there to pick up their sorted mail and parcels and deliver them in a van used to complete their route.

That shift addresses the drop in mail volume and the increase in parcel delivery as more people turn to online shopping, Hamilton said.

The changes that took effect Nov. 19 affect 53,000 London addresses, he said. Two more Canada Post depots — one serving the downtown and surrounding neighbourhoods, such as Old South, and another serving northwest London — will undergo the changes in October 2013.

It’s all part of a massive plan to put about 80% of carriers in vehicles so they can multi-task, while updating equipment and how the mail is delivered.

“The delivery of mail is something we have to modernize since people aren’t sending as many letters . . . but my biggest concern is the health and safety of my members,” said Hubley, adding many are working 12- to 14-hour days.

Carriers in London used to start at 7 a.m., but now half start at 7 a.m. and the other half at 9:45 a.m., meaning they’re making deliveries in the dark, he said.

Canada Post has offered head lamps to workers who need them, Hubley said.

Hamilton said offering safety equipment such as head lamps to workers isn’t new and happens often in northern communities where it gets dark much earlier.